In January, liberals and the media were rejoicing that an academic study had proven their favorite narrative - that voter ID laws disproportionately affect minority voters, suppress minority turnout, and are just a cover for racist voter suppression. The problem with that study was that it had questionable methodology and conclusions and evidenced bias, as reported by a new study from Yale, Stanford, and University of Pennsylvania professors:

The new study finds “no definitive relationship” between tough laws requiring voters to present identification and a dropoff in Hispanic, black, and other minority turnout. . . .

The study released March 10 questions the numbers of the January report . . . . Citing inaccuracies and errors in the previous study, it says:

Here, we show that the results of this paper are a product of large data inaccuracies, that the evidence does not support the stated conclusion, and that model specifications produce highly variable results. When errors in the analysis are corrected, one can recover positive, negative, or null estimates of the effect of voter ID laws on turnout. Our findings underscore that no definitive relationship between strict voter ID laws and turnout can be established from the validated CCES data. . . . These measurement errors in turnout raise the potential of both inefficiency and bias.

. . . “Many federal courts have been asked to do the same: Find a causal link between voter ID and intentional decreases in minority turnout,” [Logan Churchwell, spokesman for the Public Interest Legal Foundation] said. “All eventually failed. Despite this, too many in the media are willing to report an initial study as gospel before peer reviewers can weigh in. It should have struck many news editors weeks ago that it took until 2017 to provide proof to a belief that could have been confirmed a decade ago, if true.”

Of course, the second study was largely ignored by the media that touted the results of the first study. The results of the second study comport with public opinion polling showing that 77% of minority Americans support a requirement to show photo ID prior to voting. If voter ID laws were designed to, or did in practice, suppress minority voters, minority voters would not support them in such large numbers. Instead, voter ID laws are a common sense, fair protection of election integrity supported by Americans on both sides of the aisle, a fact that, for all their efforts, liberal academics and pundits have yet to disprove.

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